Coming of Age : 1976 and the Road to Anti-Racism

Art, Activism, Race and Social Justice - 1900/1976
1968
British Black Panther Movement
The Black Panther Movement was first Panther organisation to form outside of the USA. It was
founded by Obi Egbuna in 1968, however after his arrest, the leadership was passed to Althea
Jone-Lecointe. In 1970 Darcus Howe and Farrukh Dhondy joined the movement. Around 1970,
the Panthers relocated the centre of their organization from Portobello Road in Notting Hill to
Brixton and established separate branches in Acton and Finsbury Park as part of their push to
establish roots in the poorest black communities. In doing so, the new leadership, in contrast to the
old, focused on community outreach. A minority of Panthers were not happy with this new
direction. Tony Soares, left the Panthers in 1970 to help form the separatist Black Liberation
Front, In 1973, the BBPM ceased with some organized under the new name of the Black Workers’
Movement. Shortly afterwards Howe, Leila Hassan, and Dhondy started the Race Today
Collective.
1968
RIvers of Blood
Enoch Powell's April ‘68 address
to the West Midlands Area
Conservative Centre was a speech
criticising Commonwealth
immigration and antidiscrimination
legislation. It was
set against the the assignation of
Martin Luther King a week earlier,
riots in the US, and increasing black
militancy in the Black Power
movement. The racism unleashed
by the speech lasted through the
1970s, and led to the increasing
popularity of the far right National
Front.
Olive Morris (right) was a community leader and activist in the
feminist, black nationalist, and squatters' rights campaigns of the
1970s in the United Kingdom. She was a founding member of the
Organisation of Women of African and Asian
Descent (OWAAD) in London, established the Brixton
Black Women's Group, was a member of the British
Black Panthers movement, and helped found the
Manchester Black Women's Cooperative and
Manchester Black Women's Mutual Aid Group.
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